CBS
Proving that there’s nothing Hollywood won’t reboot if given then chance, a new Scooby Doo movie is reportedly in the works at Warner Bros. According to Variety, the studio is looking to send Scooby, Shaggy, and the gang on another spooky adventure, which will be written by Randall Green. The news comes just a year after Warner Bros. also announced plans for an animated Scooby Doo movie, which is reportedly still on track. Though the last live-action Mystery Gang outings, 2002’s Scooby Doo and its sequel Monsters Unleashed, did well commercially, they weren’t received well by critics and fans of the series, which is why it’s surprising that Warner Bros. would be so intent at taking a third shot at big-screen adventure. After all, the live-action Scooby Doo’s were only slightly better than Yogi Bear. There are plenty of other great classic Hanna-Barbera properties that would make for great films, so why does Scooby get a third shot at big screen success? Think about all of the possibilities that are open…
Wacky Races Concept: Think The Lego Movie meets Speed Racer, with a touch of Mega Mind thrown in. Plot: Set at the Wacky Races Grand Prix, a sprawling, dangerous race that spans three days and covers a variety of terrains, the film charts the highs and lows of all your favorite racers, from Penelope Pitstop to the Ant Hill Mob to the Gruesome Twosome, and sees Dick Dastardly’s desperate attempts to finally experience the glory for himself. Starring: Charlie Day as Dick Dastardly, Isla Fisher as Penelope Pitstop, Bill Hader as Clyde the leader of the Ant Hill Mob, Amy Poheler as the Red Max, and Tom Hanks as the Narrator. Directed By: Edgar Wright.
Inch High, Private Eye Concept: The Maltese Falcon meets Osmosis Jones.Plot: The city is being terrorized by a robber who keeps stealing priceless works of art and jewels from museums and homes. The police are understaffed, and the detectives are at their wits’ ends, and the case has reached a dead end. Then, Mrs. Gotrocks hires Inch High, Private Eye, the most brilliant and tortured detective around to look into the case. But she might not like what he finds… Casting: Casey Affleck as Inch High, Kate Mara as Lori, Josh Brolin as Gator, Tommy Lee Jones as Mr. Finkerton and June Squibb as Mrs. Gotrocks. Directed By: The Coen Brothers.
ABC
Hong Kong Phooey Concept: Think 22 Jump Street, but sillier. Plot: Penry Pooch has always wanted to be a cop, but his enthusiasm for the job doesn’t quite balance out his complete incompetence. After failing out of the police academy, he takes a job working as a janitor under the watchful eye of the constantly frustrated Sergeant. One night, when he’s the only one at the precinct, he stops and apprehends a robber, which inspires him to take up crime fighting as Hong Kong Phooey. Luckily, he’s got Spot to help him out of whatever jams he finds himself in. Casting: Will Arnett as Penry, Keith David as Sarge, Anna Kendrick as Rosemary, the telephone operator, and Nick Frost as Spot. Directed By: Shane Black.
The Jetsons Concept: August: Osage County in space. Plot: George Jetson is an ordinary man, living an ordinary life. He loves his family, endures his job and spends his time relaxing with his dog, Astro. But when he catches his wife having an affair with his boss, his world comes crashing down around him, and he’s forced to re-evaluate everything he knew about his life, and decide whether to move forward or move on. Starring: Joaquin Phoenix as George, Sandra Bullock as Jane, Hailee Steinfeld as Judy, and Steve Buscemi as Mr. Spacely, with Art Parksinson as Elroy and Scarlett Johansson as Rosie. Directed By: Spike Jonze.
ABC
JabberJaw Concept: Almost Famous meets Jaws, with a dash of Star Trek .Plot: The Neptunes were on their way to becoming the hottest rock band under the seas, until their drummer abruptly left. Then, they discovered Jabberjaw, a 15-foot-tall shark with the skills of Keith Moon, and it seemed like they had it made. But the path to rock stardom is paved with dangers and it’s time for the Neptunes to face them. Starring: Chris Pratt as Jabberjaw, Adam Levine as Clamhead, Malin Ackerman as Bubbles, Zoe Kravitz as Shelly, and Oscar Isaac as Biff. Directed By: John Carney.
Quick Draw McGraw Concept: A better homage to Blazing Saddles than A Million Ways to Die in the West .Plot: The Wild West is a dangerous place, thanks to outlaws, frequent dueling and a lack of modern medicine, but one man is there to keep order in place, and uphold justice where ever he goes… Sherrif Quick Draw McGraw. Unfortunately, he might have finally met his match when the deadliest outlaw in the west rides into his town. Starring: Damon Wayans Jr. as Quick Draw McGraw and Fred Armisen as Baba Looey.Directed By: Mel Brooks, in an ideal world.
CBS
Space Ghost Concept: It’s basically Guardians of the Galaxy, but with a monkey instead of a raccoon. Plot: After Zorak, Space Ghosts’ nemesis, escapes from prison, he recruits Black Widow (no, not that Black Widow) and Brak and Sisto in order to form a league of villains that will take over the galaxy and allow chaos to reign, but in order to do so, they need a gauntlet of power, one that only Space Ghost’s sidekick Jace possesses. Can Space Ghost and Jan rescue him and save the universe before it’s too late? Starring: Channing Tatum as Space Ghost, Emma Stone as Jan, Miles Teller as Jace, Idris Elba as Zorak, Dwayne Johnson as Brak, Jason Statham as Sisto, and Nicole Beharie as Black Widow (see, told you she was different!).Directed By: Joss Whedon, of course.
Top Cat Concept: Dancing on the Edge meets GoodFellas.Plot: Set in the 1940s, a group of rag-tag musicians are groomed to become a proper jazz sensation. But in order to do so, they’ll have to overcome prejudice, corrupt managers, in-fighting, and substance abuse and stick by each other through everything. Starring: Anthony Mackie as TC, Lamorne Morris as Brain, Albert Tsai as Choo-Choo, Michael B. Jordan as Fancy-Fancy, Josh Gad as Benny the Ball, Ruth Negga as Trixie, and Sean Penn as Officer Dibble.Directed By: Martin Scorsese.
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The cast of George Clooney's new film The Monuments Men proved they can take criticism during a recent appearance on U.S. late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! by agreeing to read foul and obnoxious tweets about themselves. Clooney, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett and John Goodman took the comments on the chin, while Matt Damon - the butt of comic Kimmel's jokes for many years - read out a tweet from the host himself.
Clooney kicked off the Mean Tweets segment, which aired on Thursday night's (06Feb14) show, by reading out comments posted by @seauxphie: "I'm very much looking forward to the day when the world stops sucking George Clooney's t**t. Lumpy faced b**tard."
The movie star responded: "F**k you, Seauxphie."
Goodman read a tweet from @sweet-toof, which suggested the butter film fans put on popcorn is made from his "ball sweat", and Blanchett turned on her Twitter critic, who wrote, "Can people stop saying Cate Blanchett is beautiful? Cate Blanchett is f**kin gross dude," stating, "That's the worst you can do?"
Murray was actually tickled by his tweet enemy, who wrote, "I find Bill Murray not funny. I was glad he got shot in Zombieland." The chuckling actor responded, "That's pretty good".
And I Bought a Zoo star Damon ended the segment by reading out Kimmel's tweet as the host stood behind him. It read: "Too bad they don't give an Oscar for blowing a** because Matt Damon would win every year. Go and buy another zoo and live in it, Bourne I-d**khead."

After Dark Films
It seems a bit odd to take on a movie review of Courtney Solomon's Getaway, as only in the loosest terms is Getaway actually a movie. We begin without questions — other than a vague and frustrating "What the hell is going on?" — and end without answers, watching Ethan Hawke drive his car into things (and people) for the hour and a half in between. We learn very little along the way, probed to engage in the mystery of the journey. But we don't, because there's no reason to.
There's not a single reason to wonder about any of the things that happen to Hawke's former racecar driver/reformed criminal — forced to carry out a series of felonious commands by a mysterious stranger who is holding his wife hostage — because there doesn't seem to be a single ounce of thought poured into him beyond what he see. We learn, via exposition delivered by him to gun-toting computer whiz Selena Gomez, that he "did some bad things" before meeting the love of his life and deciding to put that all behind him. Then, we stop learning. We stop thinking. We start crashing into police cars and Christmas trees and power plants.
Why is Selena Gomez along for the ride? Well, the beginnings of her involvement are defensible: Hawke is carrying out his slew of vehicular crimes in a stolen car. It's her car. And she's on a rampage to get it back. But unaware of what she's getting herself into, Gomez confronts an idling Hawke with a gun, is yanked into the automobile, and forced to sit shotgun while the rest of the driver's "assignments" are carried out. But her willingness to stick by Hawke after hearing his story is ludicrous. Their immediate bickering falls closer to catty sexual tension than it does to genuine derision and fear (you know, the sort of feelings you'd have for someone who held you up or forced you into accessorizing a buffet of life-threatening crimes).
After Dark Films
The "gradual" reversal of their relationship is treated like something we should root for. But with so little meat packed into either character, the interwoven scenes of Hawke and Gomez warming up to each other and becoming a team in the quest to save the former's wife serve more than anything else as a breather from all the grotesque, impatient, deliberately unappealing scenes of city wreckage.
And as far as consolidating the mystery, the film isn't interested in that either, as evidenced by its final moments. Instead of pressing focus on the answers to whatever questions we may have, the movie's ultimate reveal is so weak, unsubstantial, and entirely disconnected to the story entirely, that it seems almost offensive to whatever semblance of a film might exist here to go out on this note. Offensive to the idea of film and story in general, as a matter of fact. But Getaway isn't concerned with these notions. Not with story, character, logic, or humanity. It just wants to show us a bunch of car crashes and explosions. So you'd think it might have at least made those look a little better.
1/5
More Reviews:'The Hunt' Is Frustrating and Fantastic'You're Next' Amuses and Occasionally Scares'Short Term 12' Is Real and Miraculous
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It's been just under a year since we saw the greatest assembly of superheroic individuals hit theaters in the form of The avengers. But now the achievement looks to be topped by none other than George Clooney and his upcoming film The Monuments Men. Sure, maybe the actor/director's period drama about a team of art historians banding together to reclaim invaluable relics from the clutches of the Nazi Party isn't stocked with any instances of human flight, super strength, or even particularly impressive archery skills, but the stardom emanating from this first cast photo is far and beyond that of mortal capabilities.
In the image, we see master of the clan Clooney reteaming with old friends Matt Damon (recalling their partnership in the Ocean's series), John Goodman (who once smacked Clooney right in the head in O Brother Where Art Thou), Bill Murray (they matched wits as furry friends in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox), and producer Grant Heslov. Saddled between Damon and Goodman is a fifth cast member, obscuring his face as any clandestine mission man is wont to do — it looks a good deal like the film's Captain Harpen, Diarmaid Murtagh, but that could just be a clever disguise.
Check out the image, and gear up for what might be the greatest assembly of mighty men Hollywood has ever seen.
More: Secrets of Clooney's '1952' RevealedSee the 'Fast 6' Class PhotoLining Up the Ultimate 'Monuments Men' Cast
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With each outing in his evolving filmmaking career actor-turned-director Ben Affleck has amped up the scope. Gone Baby Gone was a character drama woven into a hard-boiled mystery. The Town saw Affleck dabble in action pulling off bank heists many compared to the expertise of Heat. In Argo the director pulls off his most daring effort melding one part caper comedy and two parts edge-of-your-seat political thriller into an exhilarating theatrical experience.
At the height of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 anti-Shah militants stormed the U.S. embassy and captured 52 American hostages. Six managed to escape the raid finding refuge in the Canadian ambassador's home. Within hours the militants began a search for the missing Americans sifting through shredded paperwork for even the smallest bit of evidence. Under pressure by the ticking clock the CIA worked quickly to formulate a plan to covertly rescue the six embassy workers. Despite a lengthy list of possibilities only Tony Mendez (Affleck) had a plan just enticing enough to unsuspecting Iranian officials to work: the CIA would fake a Hollywood movie shoot.
There's nothing in Argo or Affleck's portrayal of Mendez that would tell you the technical operations officer has the imagination to conjure his master plan — Affleck perhaps to differentiate himself from the past plays his character with so much restraint he looks dead in the eyes — but when the Hollywood hijinks swing into full motion so does Argo. Mendez hooks up with Planet of the Apes makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to convince all of Hollywood that their sci-fi blockbuster "Argo " is readying for production. With enough promotional material concept art and press coverage Mendez and his team can convince the Iranian government they're a legit operation. A location scout in Tehran will be their method of extracting the bunkered down escapees.
Without an interesting lead to draw us in Affleck lets his eclectic ensemble do the heavy lifting. For the most part it works. Argo is basically two movies — Goodman and Arkin lead the Ocean's 11-esque half and Affleck takes the reigns when its time to get the six — another who's who of character actors including Tate Donovan Clea Duvall Scoot McNairy and Rory Cochrane — through the terrifying security of the Iranian airport. Arkin steals the show as a fast talking Hollywood type complete with year-winning catchphrase ("ArGo f**k yourself!) while McNairy adds a little more humanity to the spy mission when his character butts heads with Mendez. The split lessens the impact of each section but the tension in the escape is so high so taut that there's never a moment to check out.
Reality is on Affleck's side his camera floating through crowds of protestors and the streets of Tehran — a warscape where anything can happen. Each angle he chooses heightens the terror which starts to close in on the covert escape as they drift further and further from their homebase. Argo is a complete package with the '70s production design knowing when to play goofy (the fake movie's wild sci-fi designs) and when to remind us that problems took eight more steps to fix then they do today. Alexandre Desplat's score finds balance in haunting melodies and energetic pulses.
Part of Argo's charm is just how unreal the entire operation really was. To see the men and women involved go through with a plan they know could result in death. It's a suspenseful adventure and while there's not much in the way of character to cling to the visceral experience tends to be enough.
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With the cool autumnal breezes rolling in, so too are Hollywood's biggest, award-hopeful films. Regardless of whether or not it is actually fall quite yet, the little kiddies are back at school, pumpkin spice is being added to everything, and there are only a few days left until staring wistfully at your sweater and scarf collection becomes a summer memory, and wearing becomes the reality. So to prepare us all for the glorious days of movie-watching ahead of us, we've broken it all down for you. So start saving your pennies, coordinate schedules with your film buff buddies and take a bite out of the tasty cinematic offerings that are ripe for the picking. It's like an apple orchard, but glitzier!
Check out the line-up below and get more picks tailored to your tastes in our Fall Movie Guide!
September
September 14
Finding Nemo 3D: A re-release of the popular Pixar film, this time in 3D!
Resident Evil: Retribution: The fighting against the Umbrella Corporation and all those pesky undead continues!
10 Years: A high school reunion with Channing Tatum and Friends.
Arbitrage: Hedge-funder in trouble: a ponzi scheme gone awry. Bernie Madoff-y, huh? The horror, the horror!
Bangkok Revenge: An emotionless war machine returns to the place where his parents were killed to exact ... (you guessed it!) revenge.
Brawler: Brothers! Betrayal! Fight clubs! New Orleans! A battle to the death!
Step Up to the Plate: A cooking documentary about father/son culinary duo the Bras.
Liberal Arts: Lost 30something, a girl named Zibby, and love. But in college.
The Master: The hotly-anticipated Scientology-but-not film from P.T. Anderson.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: Stephen Chbosky's classic young adult novel comes to life.
Stolen: A Nicholas Cage film about a daughter locked in a taxi's trunk.
The Trouble with the Truth: A failed marriage reconsidered, now with Lea Thompson!
September 19
Radio Unnameable: Documentary about legendary New York City disc jockey Bob Fass who pioneered free expression on the airwaves with his long running program of the same name.
Tears of Gaza: A war documentary that follows three children through war and the period after ceasefire.
September 21
Dredd: An action/sci-fi/thriller about fighting a drug war in a big futuristic city. In 3D!
End of Watch: A routine traffic stop gone really, really bad.
House at the End of the Street: Katniss Jennifer Lawrence becomes a scream queen.
17 Girls: A Belgian teen pregnancy pact film!
About Cherry: James Franco is the boyfriend of a porn star, and Dev Patel probably loves her?
Backwards: Life for an Olympic hasbeen-turned-coach is tough.
The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best: Brooklyn boys form a band.
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel: A documentary about the life and work of the influential fashion editor of Harpers Bazaar, Diana Vreeland.
The Other Son: A French film about two young men--an Israeli and Palestinian--who discover they were accidentally switched at birth.
Head Games: A sports documentary to uncover the truth about the consequences of head injuries.
How to Survive a Plague: AIDS documentary about the activism that stopped the disease from being a death sentence.
My Uncle Rafael: A comedy about a reality show!
The War of the Buttons: A French film about kid gangs and a Jewish girl in danger of being discovered by the Nazis in occupied France, comes to the states.
Trouble with the Curve: Clint Eastwood and Justin Timberlake make a baseball movie! Now get off my damn lawn.
Unconditional: Two childhood friends reconnect after many years and sad stories to exact revenge on the woman's husband's murderer.
You May Not Kiss the Bride: A pet photographer (seriously) has to marry Katharine McPhee's Croatian bride character. Warning: zany!
September 28
Hotel Transylvania: Adam Sandler is Dracula in an animated kids' film.
Looper: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis play one guy who has to kill himself, from the future. Mob stuff! Time travel!
The Barrens: The Jersey Devil of the state's Pine Barrens is hunting Stephen Moyer, you guys!
Bringing Up Bobby: Bill Pullman is in a family comedy written by Famke Janssen.
Won't Back Down: A serious drama about poor moms trying to do right by their kid's education.
The Other Dream Team: A documentary about the 1992 Lithuanian basketball team who got help from the Grateful Dead (seriously) to win at the Barcelona Olympics.
Starbuck: A sperm donor gets sued by the 142 kids he helped conceive. Yikes!
October
October 5
Butter: A comedy about a butter-carving prodigy. Do you need to know anything else?
Frankenweenie: A kid who just wants his dead dog to be...ALIIIIIIVE!
Sinister: Creepy horror flick with Ethan Hawke about a true-crime novelist who discovers footage revealing why a family was murdered in his new home. Sleep tight!
Taken 2: Liam Neeson will find you, and he will hunt you down, and he will kill you. Again!
Wuthering Heights: Another film version of the Emily Bronte novel.
Decoding Deepak: A documentary about Deepak Chopra by his son.
The Oranges: Hugh Laurie has an affair with his best friend's daughter in New Jersey. Woopsies!
The Paperboy: Yes, this is the movie where Zac Efron gets peed on by Nicole Kidman. It's also about a reporter and a death row inmate.
Pitch Perfect: A capella girls get funky thanks to singing 90s R&amp;B tunes. But funny!
V/H/S: All they wanted to do was steal a video tape, and now they're living a horror film! Everyone's worst nightmare, right?
Wake in Fright: An Australian drama thriller about a man named John Grant and a rough outback town called Bundanyabba, and what happens when the two meet.
October 12
Argo: Ben Affleck knows that the real way to free six Americans in Iran is by pretending to film a movie! Chris Messina's also in it, with Bryan Cranston, so it seems like a no-brainer here.
Here Comes the Boom: Kevin James is a high school biology teacher who wants to become mixed-martial arts fighter. You know, to save his school! Natch.
3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom: A comedy about drugs and humilation.
Atlas Shrugged: Part II: Atlas Shrugged...again!
Least Among Saints: A roughed-up soldier and a boy from a broken home strike up an unlikely friendship.
Middle of Nowhere: A movie about finding yourself while your husband's in jail.
Nobody Walks: Quick! Lena Dunham made something! It's about a young artist! Everybody dissect it!
Seven Psychopaths: Pretty much everybody good is in this movie about a struggling screenwriter whose friends kidnap a gangster's Shih Tzu.
Simon &amp; The Oaks: A Swedish WWII coming-of-age film.
Smashed: A marriage built on booze struggles when the wife gets sober.
Stories We Tell: A Sarah Polley documentary about looking back at familial events.
October 19
Paranormal Activity 4: Some mean ghosts do some f**ked up scary s**t to a new family. This time it involves the neighbors!
Alex Cross: A detective vows to track down the killer of his family.
The First Time: A romcom about high school kids. And probably doing it.
Killing Them Softly: Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta in a mob film. Is there anything else you need to know?
That's What She Said: New York City lady misadventures that are NOT about Michael Scott, apparently.
Yogawoman: A documentary about...yoga! The title's so misleading, isn't it?
October 26
The Big Wedding: Oh look! Katherine Heigl's in another movie about a wedding. This time with Diane Keaton and Robert DeNiro.
Fun Size: A big Halloween party! A baby who must be watched! Johnny Knoxville. Somebody call the shenanigans police!
Chasing Mavericks: A surfer movie with Gerard Butler. Hang ten, etc.
Silent Hill: Revelation 3D: Gory alternate reality. In 3D!
Citadel: An agoraphobic dad and renegade priest team up to save his daughter from a gang of feral kids. So...not about a military school in South Carolina then.
Cloud Atlas: The three hour epic with every actor ever in the world telling intertwined stories across millennia.
The Loneliest Planet: A backpacking film with Gael Garcia Bernal in the wilds of Georgia (not the state).
Sleep Tight: A Spanish horror film about how safe you really are at home. Yep, sleep tight indeed.
The Sessions: The heartwarming story of a man on an iron lung who just wants to get laid ... with the help of his priest and a sex therapist.
October 31
On The Road: That Jack Kerouac novel-turned-movie with Kristen Stewart
November
November 2
Flight: Robert Zemeckis directs Denzel Washington, John Goodman and Don Cheadle in a film about a plane crash.
The Man with the Iron Firsts: Eli Roth and RZA make a really bloody movie about a blacksmith in China.
Wreck-It Ralph: A video arcade game baddie just wants to be good, you guys!
This Must Be the Place: Sean Penn does his best Robert Smith impression while trying to hunt down a Nazi.
High Ground: A documentary about the emotional journey of a team of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans as they climb a mountain in the Himalayas.
Jack and Diane: A girl's awakened sexual desire for another girl makes her maybe become a werewolf. Seriously.
A Late Quartet: A famous string quartet gets too big for their britches to the point of potential self-destruction. Oh, and Christopher Walken's in it.
November 9
Lincoln: One of the many Abraham Lincoln movies being made, this time with Daniel Day-Lewis and no slaying of vampires.
Skyfall: The next installment of Daniel Craig's James Bond empire.
Nature Calls: A hijacked boy scout trip to remember? Sounds super-wacky!
November 16
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2: This needs no description. C'mon.
Anna Karenina: Because Keira Knightley cannot go three months without making an epic period piece. This time based on the Tolstoy novel.
Rust and Bone: A Belgian film with Marion Cotillard that involves a killer whale accident and a love story.
November 21
Rise of the Guardians: A children's animated film about Jack Frost and saving the kids of the world from an evil spirit named Pitch.
Red Dawn: A remake of the 1984 film about a group of teenagers saving their town from an invasion of North Korean soldiers.
Life of Pi: Based on the best-selling novel is the story of a boy named Pi and his shipwrecked companions. Mainly a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger.
Silver Linings Playbook: A feel-good holiday drama about two messed up people teaming up to make good.
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Even while defying modern filmmaking techniques with a monochromatic palette and soundscape of silence The Artist is as conventional as they come. That's not entirely a gripe—director Michel Hazanavicius' takes a simplistic approach to storytelling paving the easiest path for his cinematic playground. The movie wears its intentions on its sleeve—The Artist is a technical exercise first movie second—but the result is undeniably pleasant. Few will be safe from the movie's bombardment of silent but deadly charm.
George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a film actor working in 1920's Hollywood. He's a regular Douglas Fairbanks—a swashbuckling hunk who can smirk swagger and dance his way through any motion picture. His boss Al Zimmer (John Goodman) can't get enough of him his current co-star Constance (Missi Pyle) can't steal his spotlight his fans fill the red carpet clamoring for just one lucky snapshot and he's got a dog friend that might just be the most adorable thing on the planet. At that moment in time Valentin can't be topped.
But like all good things in a straightforward dramedy Valentin's cloud nine career slowly begins to fall apart. He meets Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) a budding actresses to whom Valentin quickly takes a liking. Their relationship grows professionally and romantically (albeit with distance—Valentin does have an unhappy wife after all) but as the era of silent pictures wanes in favor of talkies so does Valentin's popularity. Peppy becomes the next big thing and her success leaves Valentin broke and in the dust.
Hazanavicius creates a Frankenstein's monster out of his film history knowledge employing every trick in the silent film book to make The Artist shine. The writer/director digs just deep enough into Valentin's plight—a bumpy road intrinsically connected to its the medium—then lets whimsy of nostalgia do the heavy emotional lifting. Ludovic Bource's bouncy orchestral score and Guillaume Schiffman's cinematography add to the general niceness of The Artist complementing Dujardin's irresistible smile with their own intangible artistry.
And Dujardin deserves a real tip of the top hat delivering the heightened movements of Valentin with the utmost precision. His English co-stars don't have a terrible amount to do other than stand around wagging their fingers (one of the limitations of the medium) but Goodman Bejo and James Cromwell as Valentin's faithful driver Clifton are as good as thespian finger-waggers come. But even with all the happy-go-lucky antics and memories of a time forgotten The Artist remains lean. The movie's unable to overcome the technical constraints and cookie-cutter plot line to imbue any character—Valentin included—with anything remotely human. Each character is just a pawn Hazanavicius stylistic scheme.
The Artist is 100 minutes of toe-tapping entertainment a sugary sweet treat that feels all the more fresh in the current hyperactive cinema-scape. Though much like the silent era itself once the curtain closes on The Artist your attention may quickly turn to the next big thing.

It's been nearly eighty years since anyone tried to pull off what director Michel Hazanavicius and leading man Jean Dujardin do in their new film, The Artist. Why? Well back in the early part of the 20th century, filmmakers didn't have much of a choice.
The Artist tells the story of down-on-his-luck silent film actor George Valentin (Dujardin) in the most logical way possible: as a silent film. The movie features no dialogue, a crisp black and white picture and a toe-tapping score to keep the pace. If you didn't know beforehand, you'd think Dujardin was just another dashing star alongside greats like Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks or Buster Keaton. And without the constraint of language, Hazanavicius was able to enlist a handful of familiar faces for Valentin's story, including John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Berenice Bejo and Missi Pyle. The experience, as you may imagine, is something unique and magical.
I had a chance to speak to Hazanavicius, Bejo, Miller and Dujardin—who's generating tons of Oscar buzz for his work in The Artist—regarding the film's atypical style and whether or the release could spark a new wave modern silent films. Check it out below!
The Artist is out now in limited release.
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Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo